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Byline: Takashi Yokota After winning a historic election just last year, the Democratic Party of Japan seemed united in its determination to reenergize a political system that had calcified after [...]

Byline: Takashi Yokota After running through three leaders in four years, Japan's problem is not bad leaders. It's-- Petty scandal is so common in rich nations that most politicians survive [...]

Byline: Tobias Harris For several decades bureaucrats have ruled Japan, taking the lead in drafting budgets and writing legislation. The civil servants' vast power has rendered politicians weak, unable to […]

Hatoyama wants a leadership role. Even before Yukio Hatoyama became Japan's prime minister this summer, his philosophy of yuai, an idea that translates loosely to 'fraternal love,' had been ridiculed. [...]

'I just want things to change. Everyone is feeling insecure about work, the economy, the future.' Izumi Kawashima, a Japanese voter, on voting the country's Liberal Democratic Party out of [...]

Byline: Takashi Yokota These are thrilling days for the Democratic Party of Japan. As of press time, it was cruising toward a big victory in Sunday's election over the Liberal [...]

Byline: Takashi Yokota These should be thrilling days for the Democratic Party of Japan. As of press time, polls showed it cruising toward a crushing victory in Sunday's elections, with [...]

Byline: Takashi Yokota; Yokota is foreign-policy editor at NEWSWEEK Nihon-Ban, NEWSWEEK's Japanese-language partner. Japan's vanishing opposition. The Democratic Party of Japan often resembles the country's soccer team: it has plenty [...]

Byline: David McNeill The DPJ is poised to win control of Japan, but its agenda is far from clear. Who said Japanese politics are boring? There's an electoral earthquake looming [...]

Byline: Christian Caryl; With Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo Sure, Aso is atrocious. But so were his predecessors. Here's why Japan's politicians are so bad. It's hard not to pity Shoichi [...]

Byline: Christian Caryl Right up until the last minute, virtually no one in Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's entourage--not his ministers, not his private secretary, not even his wife--knew that [...]

Byline: Akiko Kashiwagi It's come to this. Japan's exasperation with a long and largely unbroken string of hapless prime ministers has reached new levels. The current seatholder, Yasuo Fukuda, now [...]

Byline: Christian Caryl and Akiko Kashiwagi The White House has boasted its share of charismatic First Ladies; think Eleanor Roosevelt or Jackie Kennedy. But Japan has never seen the like--at [...]

Byline: Christian Caryl (With Hideko Takayama and Kay Itoi) In the end it all came down to a moment of near absurdity between two of the most powerful men in [...]

Byline: Hideko Takayama The death of a politician early last week was a troubling sign for Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)--and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Yoji Nagaoka, a 54-year-old [...]

Byline: Christian Caryl and Hideko Takayama Junichiro Koizumi spoke with NEWSWEEK's Christian Caryl and Hideko Takayama in a special reception room in the Kantei, the prime minister's official residence in [...]

Of all the fresh faces in Japan's new cabinet, Sadakazu Tanigaki's is the most likely to sport a black eye or two sometime soon. As head of the powerful Ministry [...]

Ritual was meant to command the day. Japan's newly appointed Land, Infrastructure and Transport minister, 46-year-old Nobuteru Ishihara, stood in his office last Thursday afternoon as some 60 public- corporation [...]

Junichi Saito knows all about freedom of choice. At the Tokyo electronics store where he works, customers encounter a mind-boggling array of high-tech gadgets tailored to their every need. In [...]

Candidate Yasuo Tanaka is a study in perpetual motion. He hugs babies at train stations, delivers poignant sound bites along the banks of gurgling rivers and barnstorms through sweltering mountain [...]

Popular for his outspokenness and his outsider status, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara is usually mentioned as a potential replacement whenever Japan's prime minister begins to falter in the polls. With [...]

It takes a clever man to get a laugh out of double-entry-accounting principles. Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara managed that feat last Friday when he announced that the city would soon [...]

Periscope by Malcolm Beith with bureau reports; First Person Global by Ron Moreau INTELLIGENCE Overstatements of the Union? As President George W. Bush was preparing to give his State of [...]

Before she took the helm as Japan's top diplomat last April, Makiko Tanaka told NEWSWEEK that she hoped to be her government's 'brains' on foreign policy. Half a year and [...]

When she came into office in April, everyone knew that Makiko Tanaka would not be your average foreign minister. The 57-year-old politician from Niigata prefecture had gained a reputation as [...]

Yasunori Okadome, 51, is one of Japan's most controversial editors--and perhaps one of its most respected. In his monthly magazine Uwasa no Shinso (Truth of the Rumors) he has waged [...]